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Irish Social Business Campus offers support to social enterprises during the COVID-19 crisis

Wendy Wilde, ISBC Community Engagement Manager, Pauline Gannon, ISBC Director of Social Purpose, Briga Hynes, UL Kemmy Business School and Chris MM Gordon, Irish Social Enterprise Network. (photo taken before social distancing). Picture: Richard Lynch/ilovelimerick.

Irish Social Business Campus offers support to social enterprises during the COVID-19 crisis

The Irish Social Business Campus (ISBC) based at the Nexus Centre in the University of Limerick, is keenly aware that the COVID-19 crisis is having devastating effects of some of the social enterprises in the region.

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The team of the Irish Social Business Campus – Pauline Gannon, ISBC Director of Social Purpose, Eamon Ryan, CEO of ISBC and Wendy Wilde, ISBC Community Engagement Manager. (photo taken before social distancing). Picture: Richard Lynch/ilovelimerick.

The ISBC is a collaborative regional initiative, set-up in the interest of providing a support system for social enterprises across Ireland. Their aim is to help foster a growing community of viable, robust and socially impactful businesses and individuals.

Over the past few weeks, they have found that a number of social enterprises were concerned about surviving the crisis in comparison to others who they were inundated with calls for help and finding it difficult to meet the demand for their services.

“This is a real blow to a sector that has been striving so hard to create a strong social economy in Ireland,” said Director Pauline Gannon.  The team at ISBC has been working around the clock to put a contingency plan in place to best support and meet the needs of the social enterprise community here in the Midwest.

“We are in unprecedented times and one of great change, it is crucial that we continue to support the truly inspiring work happening within the Social Enterprise Sector here in the Midwest  and encourage the people behind these enterprises to stay strong in the face of such adversity”

ISBC have kept their calendar of events and stayed on schedule with their supports and services in order to provide continuity of support, at a time when it is most needed. 

“The focus of some of their offerings have shifted, and we have utilised our online platforms more, but the essence remains the same, to inspire, connect and enable the Social Enterprise Sector to stand together and weather the storm as best they can,” said CEO Eamon Ryan.

 

To find out more about what ISBC are offering at the moment refer to their website www.isbc.ie or send an email to [email protected]. 

For more stories about ISBC, click here.

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Richard is a presenter, producer, songwriter and actor. He was named the Limerick Person of the Year (2011) and won an online award at the Metro Éireann Media and Multicultural Awards (2011) for promoting multi-culturalism online. Richard says that the ilovelimerick.com concept is very much a community driven project that aims to document life in Limerick. So, that in 20 years time people can look back and remember the events that were making the headlines.